Dead-Drop Escarpment Worst Day of My Life

For @Ruenna :D
Backdated to 10/24/16

He was happy.

The kind of happy that had him prancing and swaying with his every step. Because he had a pumpkin snug between his jaws, and there was no topping that in his books. Of course he just called it an 'orange thingie' in his head, but he liked the plant all the same. He continued on through the underbrush with his paws light and head held high, tail swinging behind him. It was a nice morning and he had a friend to enjoy it all with. That's what he called a good day.

(Which was why it all had to come crashing down around him.)

He didn't notice that the forest floor seemed to just - to just stop existing. There was solid rock below one moment and than none the next, and he caught himself at the last moment from plummeting down. He reared back onto his hind legs, jaws falling open in a silent yelp because not today death. It was then the pumpkin he was holding was launched into the air, and he could only watch as the scene played in slow motion before him.

There was a heart shattering moment where his friend seemed to almost levitate in the air just out of reach, spinning slow on its axis. But that was before gravity took hold. And just like that the orange plant plummeted downwards to its surely grisly demise. There was no hope in saving it, no matter how much he wanted to launch forward and catch it. The ledge was right there and he couldn't move. His muscles wouldn't listen to his panicked thoughts of please just let me catch it. He helped his friend cheat death once in the past, but fate wouldn't have it again.

And so he watched as the pumpkin disappeared in the branches below, crumbling with each blow the trees offered it as it descended. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. Instead he could only stare in silent horror as his friend fell to its death.

There was no god, he was sure of that now.

(This post was last modified: Nov 13, 2016, 09:22 PM by Cottongrass.)

This was possibly the thirtieth or thirty-first time she had passed this way. The counting had stopped being precise after about number eighteen, but there was a part of her brain, in the back, which kept track anyway. She couldn't help it. Everything had started to look familiar after about three weeks, and then just all the same after two months, and now she was pretty sure that this was her purgatory. The hills and forests and holes and rivers and mountains and pinecones and deer droppings which had once been exciting and new were all the same. The wolves were the same. Even with a layer of snow she knew it was all the same underneath, like the world was just trying to put on a pretty new mask to catch her out. I see you, she thought, through narrowed eyes.

Even the sun was the same, and she'd been chasing a different one every day all her life. Up until Oak Tree Bend, that is. Her father had strived so hard to get back to this, to his family, and Rue had managed it against all odds and - and what? Now she was just going to be ungrateful and hate it? After everything they had worked so hard to achieve, after how long they had searched, after all the stories she had obsessed over?

Before, back when she lived on her own and life in a pack was nothing more than a fiction, she had imagined what it would be like, what she would be like; involved, knowing everybody's business, probably the pack clown. There would be puppies to look after and entertain! Territories to scout, names and neighbours to learn, and it would all actually mean something for a change! But 'meaning something' somehow itself meant something different than she had expected, something less exciting and altogether more mundane, and she finally realised what it meant to live for others and be content with just surviving. It wasn't like Oak Tree Bend struggled. It was full of life, and while she had imagined herself at its heart... instead she still felt like an outsider. And she knew whose fault that was.

Thirty-one, she was positive. Leaving behind the crude 'drawing' of the mountain she had crunched into the fresh snow, Rue trotted on, tail high and absently wagging, for while she was drowning Ruenna Tainn was simultaneously the ship band which played merrily as the boat sank. She couldn't let any of them see anything other than her smile. And as she moved, so she wondered which way she would turn next - left or right, to the misshapen tree or past the easily-missed ledge? - and chose right, and almost immediately saw someone up ahead making the same decision, and felt her spirits lifted the moment she didn't recognise them. But she barely had time to skip forward before she realised that the wolf was heading right towards that fall, and then had no time to call out in warning before they realised in the most unhappy way - and she saw the pumpkin rise and hover and crash down all in a twinkling of an eye.

From the wolf's body language - and as she crept closer, facial expression - it was totally clear that she was witness to a most horrific event.

Stepping forward on more reverent toes, she came to stand on that ledge beside him, gazing down into the trees which had so eagerly swallowed up his possession.

"Let us have a moment of silence," she said, sombre, and bowed her head. Hopefully she hadn't misread the situation - perhaps what she had seen, instead, was a terrible murder, not an accident at all.

But this way was more fun.

@Ruenna :D
I'm sorry he's so dramatic and serious <3

How could he be quiet now?

His friend was dead — killed by his own clumsy jaws — and he was sure the world was officially ending. Because how else would he have such bad luck? There was no other explanation other than utter madness. The universe was over, the world was flipped atop its head, anarchy reigned, he was hyperventilating. There were so many words and sentences he needed to say — but his jaw remained firmly shut. Inside his mouth his tongue flapped uselessly because what was he supposed to do?

The moment of silence they were having didn't feel good. It felt horrible, bad, wrong. Because he just did a bad and something needed to happen or else he was going to stand there until the end of time. But that moment already came and went, didn't it? The big clock of the world stopped ticking the same time his friend's heart did. And while he couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when that might've happened, he knew it happened.

Slowly, mechanically, he swallowed. It took a few moments of him working his jaws before he could remember how words worked.

"Do you - do you think they're alright?" The they in question being his prized possession that just went over the edge into the forests below. There was nothing but horrible, sinking dread in his heart but he couldn't help but hold onto the tiny glimmer of hope that was somewhere inside of him. He twisted to face the girl, yellow eyes searching her face for answers from under his lashes. This couldn't be where the story ended.

pff never apologise <3

The silence dragged on, with Rue's eyes held shut and muzzle low in respect for the dead. Inside she was flicking through the tomes in her library in search of the various ways she knew that wolves mourned. There was the feral way, of course, where you just buried the dead and considered yourself lucky that it wasn't you. Then there was the classic, where you gathered around the body or burial site and lifted your heads to the sky in mournful song. She'd met wolves who believed that the longer and louder you howled over a death, the better and sturdier the bridge to the overworld was for the dearly departed. She'd met wolves who always cast the bodies of their dead into the river, and another group who took the event of a death as a sign that they should move their territory once more. Then there had been that one pack who... well. They'd never confirmed it, of course, but she was pretty sure she read the signs right, and let's just say they were always well-fed in the days after experiencing loss.

A particularly beautiful sermon was rolling around her tongue as she reminded herself of the words, preparing to offer it in comfort of this sad occasion, when his silence broke. She opened one eye to peek at him, and found him looking at her, his hopeless plea writ plain on his face. She paused, and discarded the sermon. It wouldn't be needed. This poor fellow needed closure, not comfort.

Lifting her head, pale brown eyes still meeting his own, a smile of fellowship and solidarity on her lips. "Let's find out."


And before he would have time to contest it, because he might hesitate and say no even though she knew much better than him, Rue turned to the left in search of the path which would take them right down to the truth, not waiting for him to follow.

He didn't get a moment to process the she-wolf's words. He didn't get a moment to blink, breathe, or even think about doing any of the listed actions. Instead his body sort of just did, autopilot switching on the moment his brain went blank. His default settings were apparently 'do whatever anyone says, quick.'

"Okay." He blurted out, the lone word confused and almost questioning on his tongue. Yet he still found himself shuffling after her as she led them left, down to where the sudden drop sloped into land. It took a second for her words to settle. Because she did just chirp 'lets find out,' didn't she? It took him another careful second for his own words and actions to settle in - that he had agreed with her and was following her. None of that - none of that settled well inside of him. It wasn't his brightest moment.

(But to be fair, none of the moments he had were his brightest. None of them.)

He grimaced, ears rolling back against his skull and tail tucking between his hind legs. His friend was only an omen, she was whatever that came after to fulfill said omen. He would be denounced a friend murderer. His last thoughts would be she's going to murder me.

What were the odds that the fellow's poor pumpkin pal had found itself a soft landing? She knew this dead-drop pretty well - just like she knew this whole place pretty well, there was nothing to do but document it all - and was running through her mental map of it, of where he had dropped it, of roughly what was at the bottom... To her concern, she was pretty sure that that particular spot had no nice mossy bed at the bottom of it, no thick bed of tree tops to catch a wayward pumpkin. It might have gotten stuck among the tangled branches and vines, or maybe there was a thick snow drift at the bottom, or...

Skipping down the sloped ground with compounding anticipation for what they might find, able to hear the poor white fellow following morosely after her, Rue turned sharply to the right the moment that they were level with the bottom of the dead-drop in order to make her way to where they had been just moments earlier, only now several feet below. Slowing, nose twitching as she tried and failed to detect the telltale scent of fresh pumpkin pulp, as they moved through the undergrowth suddenly there was a hint of orange up ahead - and she stopped in her tracks, sensing the worst.

Edging sideways just a little to try and obscure his view of it, just in case he hadn't spotted the bright sliver, Rue's ears flicked back to the man even though she couldn't take her eyes off of it. "Okay. Okay. How about - you stay here, okay? Just right here. I'll go... go see what happened. Yeah? Can you do that for me?"

He saw the flash of orange just up ahead, a stark contrast to the dark hues of the area. And somewhere inside of his chest his heart hammered away, pounding against his rib cage. Because was his - was his friend okay? The hope he held was too much, a piercing pain within that flickered to life. Behind him his tail started a tentative wag, barely a twitch but the movement was there. He took a step forward, just behind the she-wolf to get a better look.

All he could see was the back of her head as she suddenly shuffled sideways, effectively hindering his view of the sight. Everything inside of him stuttered to a halt, ears flicking forward to listen to whatever she was saying. He frowned, confused but telling himself he understood. She did seem to know more than him, seeing how she tried to warn him about the ledge and she actually knew the way down. If she didn't find him, he'd probably have just crept forward and hoped for the best, really. Which in hindsight - wouldn't have been smart or good at all. He nodding to himself in fragile understanding.

"Oh. Uh. Okay." He paused awkwardly, shifting his weight from one paw to the next. And unsure of what else to do - he plopped back down onto his hindquarters. He blinked. "What do you, uh, what do you see?" He called ahead, not even a moment later. Because he wasn't very good at waiting and being quiet, unless she wanted the anxiety to have him drop dead right there.